The 3D\u2014Drunk and Drugged Driving\u2014committee said yesterday that it will be intensifying its fight against drunk and drugged driving to stem the high number of arrests of motorists driving under the influence of alcohol and drugs.<\/p>\n
The committee, comprising staff from the Department of Public Safety Traffic Section, met with other government agencies, including the Attorney General\u2019s Office, Marianas Visitors Authority, and the Saipan Mayor\u2019s Office, yesterday morning to discuss ways of educating the community against drunk and drugged driving.<\/p>\n
Plans for events this December\u2014to be proclaimed Drunk and Drugged Driving Prevention Month\u2014include a mini-fair, presentations at schools and both government and private agencies, among others.<\/p>\n
Statistics provided by the DPS Traffic Section indicate that 254 DUI arrests were made in the first nine months this year, the majority of which involved males.<\/p>\n
A total of 35 arrests were made in January, 35 in February, 29 in March, 21 in April, 18 in May, 26 in June, 34 in July, 31 in August, and 25 in September. Of the 254, over 25 incidents involved motorists under the legal drinking age of 21.<\/p>\n
Also, nine crashes involving DUI were posted in January, seven in February, 14 in March, eight in April, six in May, 12 in June, and seven in August. <\/p>\n
On average, DPS officers respond to nearly 30 DUI incidents a month.<\/p>\n
Last year, a total of 365 DUI cases were reported, 17 of which involved drivers under the age of 21, and 131 involving crashes. A total of 422 cases were reported in 2002, with 36 incidents involving drivers under 21 years old.<\/p>\n
Traffic Section also reported that majority of DUI arrests occurred between 8pm and 4am. <\/p>\n
Statistics also indicate that a total 2,142 accidents were recorded from January to August this year\u201489 cases or 4.3 percent higher than the number recorded last year, which totaled 2,053 in the first eight months.<\/p>\n
The report also shows a 67.2-percent increase when drawing comparison between incidents this year and the same period in 2002, which featured 1,281 accidents in the first eight months.<\/p>\n
Further, Traffic related fatalities have already surpassed the numbers recorded last year, with nine deaths recorded compared with seven in 2003.<\/p>\n
Traffic accidents also increased by 41.1 percent from 2002 to 2003, with a total of 3,168 recorded in 2003, or 923 cases more than the 2,245 recorded in 2002.<\/p>\n
Committee vice chair Rose Ada-Hocog earlier disclosed that the committee is currently working on getting support from the Legislature to include DUI in the Child Endangerment Act.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe really want this to go through because a lot of residents\u2026once they drink beer, and you tell them that you\u2019re going to drive them, they refuse. When they drink, they sometimes don\u2019t think of the passengers. We\u2019ve got to protect our children and our people, and one way is to include Child Endangerment in the list of traffic offenses,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The Traffic Section works toward improving public safety, advocating passage of legislation that would update and improve current laws, zero out fatalities and injuries, and educate the public, especially foreigners about NMI traffic laws, among others.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The 3D\u2014Drunk and Drugged Driving\u2014committee said yesterday that it will be intensifying its fight against drunk and drugged driving to stem the high number of arrests of motorists driving under the influence of alcohol and drugs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-84604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84604","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84604"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84604\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}